


Until Death

by Littlebiscuits



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Creepy Marriage Proposal, Dubious Consent, M/M, Manipulation, Spoilers, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 07:42:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15636264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlebiscuits/pseuds/Littlebiscuits
Summary: Rook vaguely registers something about God's will, and strength in unity, but he's mostly thinking about the fish.





	Until Death

Joseph first mentions it over breakfast, on day three hundred and six in the bunker. But Rook isn't really listening, most of Joseph's long, religious speeches and/or monologues can be tuned out as long as you scan them for a few key words. He just likes to talk, it doesn't always matter if anyone's listening very hard. Though Joseph did threaten to carve Rook's chest open the last time he tried to nap during his sermons. So as long as you _look_ as if you're listening, it doesn't usually matter.

Rook vaguely registers something about God's will, and strength in unity, but he's mostly thinking about the fish. He thinks they've been looking a little sad lately, it's worrying him.

"Did you feed the fish?" he asks, he was pretty sure it was Joseph's turn.

Joseph looks briefly frustrated at the interruption, before his expression smoothes out again.

"Yes, while you were in the shower," he says.

"Ah, good." Because Rook's named them all, and he can almost tell them apart now. They haven't lost one yet, and it's maybe the one thing he's done in here that feels like an accomplishment. The fish are going to remain alive. At least one of them needs to be here to accomplish that. That was how Rook had reasoned it for the first six months. They had to get along, if only for the fish. There's probably some sort of sad psychological explanation behind his argument but he doesn't care.

Joseph brings it up again a day later, and this time Rook is actually listening. He's been working his way through the jigsaw puzzles he'd found stacked in the second bedroom. The picture on the box of this one seems to be a drawing of another drawing of the actual puzzle. Which is mostly submarines and ocean. Dutch has horrible taste in puzzles, they're almost all at least fifty years old, and military-based. Rook would absolutely take an ugly scenic landscape over submarines, as if he needed to feel _more_ claustrophobic, but he's doing them in order, so he doesn't end up doing all the shitty ones last.

"No," Rook says firmly. While mentally jotting this down as another keyword he should probably start listening out for.

Joseph's expression is soft. 

"God has told me -"

"No," Rook interrupts again, before Joseph can get distracted by biblical prophecies and arguments about divine will. "I'm not marrying you. I don't care what God says about it."

Rook angrily stuffs a puzzle piece in, then very quickly realises it's in the wrong place, wonky and imperfect where he's put it. He sets about carefully trying to pick it out again. The stupid submarines are all grey, and the water is all blue, and the sky is all blue, and this thing is fucking _impossible_. How do people do these things? How do people _enjoy_ these things?

"God wants us to be joined," Joseph says firmly. Like he can't understand why Rook is being so difficult about this.

Rook stabs at the piece that's wrong, and is now wilfully refusing to come out. Damn it, it can stay in there now. He will make it fit. It's not like anyone will ever know.

"You do realise we're both men, right? I mean, I know you have your off days, but I feel like that's something you and your weird boundary issues should have clocked by now." Rook noticed right away, because Joseph sleeps naked. That is a thing he knows, and that he tries to think about as little as possible. Since he's trapped in a bunker with a stupid, naked cult leader with no boundary issues.

Joseph effortlessly picks out the traitorous puzzle piece, clicks it in much higher on the puzzle - it turns out it was a bit of sky, not water. Because of course it was.

"That doesn't matter," Joseph dismisses, like that minor obstacle isn't even important. "We are the last of His children. It is our duty to cleave together."

That sounds impossibly dirty, even in that vaguely threatening tone Joseph says it in. It actually has Rook very briefly considering it, a moment of madness which he usually only admits to when all the lights are off and Joseph is asleep. He's been locked in a bunker with a crazy person for far too long.

"No, I refuse." Something else occurs to Rook. "I thought you said we were already family anyway. You're the father, I'm your child. You've given that sermon to me about fifty seven times already. What I'm supposed to do double duty now?" 

Joseph gives him a look, and Rook knows he's being chastised for his flippancy.

"We are family, and we will be family, in all ways." He sounds way too enthusiastic about that, and he seems to think Rook will be pleased about it too.

"You're making it weirder," Rook tells him. Then ignores him, until Joseph makes a long noise of persecuted frustration, and slinks off to his room of religious contemplation - which used to be a storage room, but is now papered with all Joseph's crazy thoughts and sketches of Armageddon. Rook doesn't really go in there much. Though sometimes Joseph has stretches where he's especially intense, vibrating quiet desperation, more loudly religious than normal. Rook has learnt that if he goes and sits in there for a sermon, maybe calls Joseph 'Father' a couple of times, it tends to quiet him down.

This is clearly not something Joseph is going to drop. Rook should have known, Joseph is not a man to be deterred, especially not when God has told him to do something. He hovers more now, silent and focused, like he's trying to think of exactly the right argument that will convince Rook. Something that will make him say yes to his crazy demands. He does it while being bare-chested and inscrutable and Rook doesn't know whether to be worried or disturbingly aroused. Joseph hasn't been this unsettling for a few long months now and it's putting Rook on edge. Because this isn't the intensity of potential violence, or unexpected middle-of-the-night-sermons. This is more _focused_.

Rook's sitting at the table three days later, when Joseph lowers himself into the chair opposite him. He's reading a book about whales, it's very dull, but it's a book to read. Dutch's book collection makes no goddamn sense at all, it's as if the man just went into a library and stole one of those trolleys where they put all the returns, or told a bookshop to give him fifty books at random, but at least it's always surprising. 

"I know you pleasure yourself almost every night," Joseph says, voice hushed like he thinks someone else might hear. He's got one of those voices that makes everything sound vaguely dirty, which forces Rook to not think about sex a lot. Something he still fails at constantly.

Rook stops turning pages.

"And I know you cry in the bathroom because you think God isn't listening to you. I assumed we had some sort of gentleman's agreement to not talk about either of those things."

Joseph ignores his attempt to derail his argument.

"You would no longer need to touch yourself, if you agreed to let me marry us. We would share a bed, we would be joined, in any way that you wished."

That's probably the politest and creepiest way anyone has ever offered marital services. Rook can't think why he isn't horribly flattered.

"There would be no sin in it," Joseph adds, like that part is important.

Rook puts the book down, because this is clearly a serious conversation that he can't just make go away by ignoring it.

"You think that I want to touch you?" Rook is very careful to keep his voice flat. To make it a question with no emotion behind it. A polite encouragement for Joseph to explain his reasoning.

Joseph frowns, and then actually looks uncertain. Rook can see the arguments he'd been building slowly start to crumble. Weird, you'd think a crazy man had never awkwardly proposed to another man inside the bunker they had to spend seven years in before.

"I had assumed," Joseph says softly. 

And, yes, Rook is more than a little insulted that Joseph had apparently been banking his whole argument on Rook's dick making all his decisions for him - and clearly bad ones at that. Joseph doesn't know him well enough to make assumptions about his dick. Three hundred days of captivity notwithstanding.

"Yeah, no, you know what they say about assumptions."

"There are other reasons to be married," Joseph says, eyes raised like he's trying to find a biblical passage that will help him with this.

"Uh huh," Rook agrees. "Love, children, financial stability, citizenship, religious conversion, teenage whim. None of which apply to the both of us, none of which will _ever_ apply to the both of us."

Joseph looks frustrated, as if he thinks Rook is being difficult on purpose.

"Tell me then," Joseph says firmly. "Tell me what you find most distasteful about the idea."

Rook decides that the only thing that might help him here is brutal honestly.

"How about the fact that you're an unstable madman, and waking up to you trying to choke me, and muttering about _martyrs to God_ again would be a lot more fucking disturbing if we were married, how about that?"

Joseph has the grace to at least realise that might be a little fucked up. Rook watches it hit him in slow motion, watches Joseph push his chair back and leave the table.

Rook is no longer in the mood to read about the migratory patterns of sperm whales.

 

~

 

Joseph cries in the bathroom for a long time, and this is the first time Rook has felt shitty about it. There's a messy conversation with God somewhere in there too, angry muttering and the vague sound of pages being aggressively torn up. Rook tries very hard not to listen, but it's a small bunker and everything echoes.

 

~

 

Rook finds Joseph in the mini kitchen later, carefully and aggressively measuring out rice like it's a sworn religious duty. Hell, maybe for him it is, because he takes his responsibility to feed them both very seriously. And he's actually pretty good at it - even if Rook had worried originally about his continued access to all the kitchen knives.

"I'm sorry about what I said," Rook says, awkwardly, because one of them has to be a sensible, stable adult in this - in this bunker. "You haven't actually tried to kill me for a long time, and it was...understandable, since I killed everyone you loved. I shouldn't have brought it up." Joseph doesn't enjoy reminders of his less stable moments. 

The fall of rice comes to a stop. After a pause it continues again.

"Nevertheless, I must repent for the violence I have done to you in the past, and the wrath that fuelled it," Joseph offers. "Before I can expect you to seriously consider my request."

Rook doesn't know how to ask that he not repent by carving words into his skin. But they'd had that conversation already, a long time ago, after Rook caught him in the bathroom, blood running gruesomely from his leg. There had been a very uncomfortable afternoon where Rook had to awkwardly stitch Joseph's upper thigh, biting out angry demands for an explanation, while Joseph read passages from his book to him, and counselled him on the ease to which he surrendered to wrath.

Though Joseph seems to have held to the 'no more self-mutilation' request ever since.

"Ok," Rook says, because he's not sure what else he's supposed to do but agree with him. 

Joseph turns around and looks at him pointedly.

Rook sighs.

"Alright, fine, I'll repent as well. Whatever that means when we're the last people around for fucking miles." He's not even certain what he's repenting for. He's not sure it matters, as long as he has some sort of air of repentance about him.

"If you listened when I read from the book, you would understand," Joseph insists, not for the first time. It's been a year, Rook knows most of Joseph's sermons almost as well as he does. Though there's no way on earth he's going to admit to that.

Also, the book is very boring, and seems to assume everyone is already onboard with Joseph's vision. Which makes no sense, he's rewritten it three times already, and they're literally the only two people around. So the bunker officially houses one true believer, and one grumpy heretic.

"I know, I know, but I was never very good at religion, I've told you that. I'm bad at sitting still, I ask too many questions, I get confused easily."

Joseph sighs, and Rook knows he thinks that they're just excuses. 

Rook doesn't know why he's pushing so hard for them to be married. Since they clearly already are.

 

~

 

Joseph is uncharacteristically quiet for a week after that. And Rook honestly doesn't know if it's because he's formulating another method of persuasion, or baiting a trap, or just waiting until Rook's not expecting it so he can drug him unconscious and marry him anyway. 

There may still be trust issues in this relationship.

But when he wakes up at two in the morning to the draughty pull of sheets, and the unfamiliar press of warm skin, he's not entirely surprised. Frustrated, and irritated, and aroused, but not surprised. 

"What are you doing?" he grumbles.

Joseph ignores him and continues his bid to slide in next to him.

"You can't just -"

Joseph grasps his face in both hands and leans his weight into him, kisses him. Honestly, Rook should have expected exactly this, because when all the planning, religious arguments and sensible conversation had failed him, of course Joseph Seed was going to go for the fucking nuclear option.

It takes Rook a handful of seconds to remember why they shouldn't, which is more than long enough for Joseph to encourage his mouth open and make the kiss something complicated. There's the quick push of blankets, the drag of a narrow leg over his own and Joseph pushes a hand inside his shorts, warm fingers curling around him with a determined sort of sex-based aggression. All Rook can do is slide a hand up the back of Joseph's neck, and push fingers into his hair - and then completely fail to make Joseph stop kissing him. 

He's failing a lot of things, because it's been forever, God it's been _forever_ since someone else touched him. And now he has Joseph's loose hair tangled in one hand and his warm body pressed all along the length of him, hand working slowly on his cock. It's a shock of unexpected pleasure that Rook just doesn't have the breath to get over. That he doesn't have enough hands, or self-control to stop. Especially not when Joseph nudges his legs open and slips himself between, all narrow weight, nudity and obvious arousal. It's an intimacy they haven't earned, but Rook's still pulling him closer, taking the opportunity to kiss him again. His mouth is hot and rough, and Rook can't help making noises into it.

"This is manipulation," he grumbles eventually, though there isn't even close to enough force behind it. He's failing in so many ways to stop this, and talking is clearly not working but he's not trying anything else. "This isn't fair, you son of a bitch."

Joseph stares at him, and it occurs to Rook that this was a man that would happily set the world on fire to do what he thought God wanted. He's not going to win this one. Not for six fucking years.

"Alright, fine," Rook says at last. "You win. You fucking win."

"Tell me you agree," Joseph says fiercely, as if he wants no confusion later, no protests that Rook had misunderstood.

"Yes, fine, I'll marry you, and God will be happy, is that what you wanted?" It's not like Joseph is actually ordained or anything, damn it, it's not like it will count. "Yes, fine, yes to everything, God, everything is your fault."

Joseph's sighs something that sounds a lot like victory, smiles in that creepy way he has. Rook drags him back down and kisses him just so he doesn't have to look at it.

Rook half expects Joseph to try and leave the bed then, to slide away muttering something about not sleeping with him until they're officially married, or some frustrating, manipulative bullshit. Which Rook is absolutely certain would make him dig his heels in and seethe for as long as he could hold out. 

But Joseph knows him, he knows him too well now. He pins Rook to the bed and pushes his mouth open, suddenly all aggressive, wanton determination that Rook has no defence against it, none at all. It's been almost a year and Joseph has been a constant vibrating presence, all bare skin and staring and focus. It's almost like Rook's body has been expecting this for months, and having it all thrown at him is more than he can cope with. He's already shoving up into Joseph's grip, words cut to pieces when he tries to choke them out.

"This is a terrible idea, we are going to be terrible together. This is fucking manipulative, and unhealthy, and you're going to annoy the shit out of me constantly."

"And then you may take me to bed and chastise me," Joseph says softly.

Rook's body makes a noise like it's dying, completely without his consent, and he's coming over his own stomach, and the sheets, and Joseph's hand. Which for some reason he finds disturbingly hot. Joseph's saying something against the curve of his jaw, soft and pleased and almost certainly crazy, but Rook can only hear his own heartbeat, his own pathetic breathing. Normally Rook would make a point of not agreeing to Joseph's demands on principal, but his whole body is twitching pleasantly, and he's making shaky noises on every exhale. 

Damn it, Joseph is going to win every argument now, isn't he? 

Rook should probably do something about that.

When Joseph eventually stops talking, Rook grips his waist and rolls him sideways, until he can pin one of Joseph's long legs to the bed. He encourages them to open around him, then slides his way down.

Joseph makes a surprised noise, then a much shakier noise when Rook curls a hand round his cock and opens his mouth around it. And as long as it's been for Rook, he has no idea how long it's been for Joseph, but his body twitches and tenses at every slide, as if he's forgotten how to cope with pleasure. 

Joseph's hands stop fisting the sheets and dig their way into Rook's hair, and he doesn't stop them. 

When he slips his way briefly free, leaves Joseph's cock bare and wet, there's a choked, pleading string of words. Then the drag of fingers down his face, dipping in and easing his mouth back open, then tugging it down, which Rook is kind of into, if he's being honest.

Eventually there's just noise, and the messy wet slide and push of Rook's mouth, the slow grasp of his hand, and the tugging encouragement of Joseph's. Until everything is briefly forceful and tight, and Rook sinks to a stop, lets Joseph curve into him and moan his way through orgasm.

Rook rests his weight on Joseph's thigh, while the other man remembers how to breathe. Eventually his leg twitches, fingers untangling themselves from Rook's hair. Joseph's head tips down, he looks flushed and drunk, and his hand won't stop petting Rook's face, even when Rook slides back up the bed and throws the sheet over both of them.

Maybe they can make this marriage work after all.


End file.
